17 Creating a sense of belonging in your class
Sense of belonging refers to “a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together” (Osterman, 2000, p. 324). An inclusive learning environment involves intentionally cultivating a sense of belonging and fostering a learning environment where students can equitably access the resources they need to succeed and feel respected and supported as members of a learning community.
To start creating a sense of belonging in your classroom, you can consider opportunities to share your interests, values, and personal learning process with students in ways appropriate to your context and positionality. Sharing your struggles in learning new material helps to demystify learning and normalize these experiences.
During the first days of class, you can also provide ways for students to see themselves as members of the disciplinary community by:
- Introducing your students to a reflection paper activity where they can share their values, goals, and motivation for learning and taking your course.
- Adding perspectives from diverse experts in your syllabus or as guest speakers, showing individuals from many backgrounds in learning materials and examples.
- Acknowledging that some perspectives have often been erased or not represented. Raise questions about where the evidence used in class originated and what voices are missing, then think collaboratively of ways to incorporate them.
To nurture your students’ sense of belonging, we recommend you provide opportunities for students to get to know and interact with each other. You could provide opportunities for students to work in pairs or small groups and employ icebreakers throughout the semester. Icebreakers can prepare students for collaborative group work and create an environment where students feel more comfortable sharing ideas in class. This kind of activity can help you get to know your students, let them know you, and familiarize them with course content and expectations.
Here are some ideas for icebreaker questions and activities:
- What is your favorite season and why?
- What’s the story behind your name?
- Why are you interested in taking this course?
- Share a boring fact about you.
- What gets you out of bed in the morning? What are you passionate about?
- Students find three other students in class with whom they have something in common. It should not be anything visible (such as a clothing item) to help them create more meaningful connections.
Icebreakers do not always go exactly as planned. Flexibility and willingness to learn are part of building a positive and open learning community.
For more teaching strategies, please read our Supporting Belonging in the Classroom and Environments that Support Belonging resources.
💡 Please reflect:
What strategies are you planning to use to foster an inclusive environment? How would you like to set the tone for the learning community and engagingly lead into course content?
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